Description:
If you have purchased the VMware Virtual SMP product, then
you can create Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP) virtual
machines, with single or dual virtual CPUs. You install the
Virtual SMP product during your ESX Server installation.

Action:
Install Virtual SMP by inserting its serial number during
the Licensing step of your ESX Server configuration through
the VMware Management Interface.

Upgrading a Previous ESX Server
Release to ESX Server 2.0.1

Description:

Caution: Before upgrading your current
version of ESX Server to version 2.0.1, be sure to
see
Before You Install ESX Server for important
information regarding the upgrade process.

Also, when performing an upgrade, be sure to reboot your
server before starting your server configuration.
After ESX Server comes up, then log into the VMware
Management Interface to begin your server configuration.

Description:
The default speed/duplex setting for ESX Server NICs has
changed from "100/1000/full" in ESX Server 1.5.x to
"autonegotiate" in ESX Server 2.0.1.

Action:
If you are upgrading from ESX Server 1.5.x, then you may
need to alter your switch's setting to "autonegotiate", for
ports connected to the ESX Server machine, or you may force
the NICs to full duplex in the NIC configuration page. (Log
into the VMware Management Interface as the root user, click
the Options tab, then click Network Connections.)

Note:It is important that both the switch port and the
NIC are either both set to autonegotiate, or both forced to
the same speed/duplex setting.

Upgrading SNMP from a Previous
ESX Server Release

Description:
If you are upgrading from an ESX Server 1.5.x release, then
SNMP, and possibly other system management agents, will not
work properly. Save and copy onto another machine all SNMP
files that were used to set up read/write community names,
trapsinks, and trapcommunity names.

Action:
Complete the following steps.

Save and copy onto another machine the following files:

ESX Server 1.5 and 1.5.1:

/usr/share/snmp/snmpd.conf —
Save this file, but remove the last section
that starts with "# VMware ESX Server SNMP
modules -- Edit this section at your own
risk". We'll call this file
Alpha.

(Optional) /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf
— If you have this file, and made
changes to it or if you have installed
third-party system management software on ESX
Server, then save this file. We'll call this
file Beta.

ESX Server 1.5.2:

/etc/vmware/vmware-snmpd.conf —
Save this file, but remove the last section
that starts with "# VMware ESX Server SNMP
modules -- Edit this section at your own
risk". We'll call this file
Alpha.

(Optional)/etc/snmp/snmpd.conf
— If you have this file, and made
changes to it or if you have installed
third-party system management software on ESX
Server, then save this file. We'll call this
file Beta.

If you've created only an Alpha file, then rename
it to MAIN. If you've created Alpha and
Beta, then merge your customizations into a
single file, called MAIN. Be sure to eliminate
any duplicate configuration items in the MAIN
file.

If you are upgrading from ESX Server 1.5 or 1.5.1, then
install the ucd-snmp-4.2.3-1.i386.rpm and
ucd-snmp-utils-4.2.3-1.i386.rpm files from the
ESX Server CD. Log in as the root user and type rpm
-Uhv <snmp_file> for each of these files. If
you are upgrading from ESX Server 1.5.2, then you do not
do this step.

Complete one of the following, depending on whether you
are only using VMware ESX Server SNMP or if you are using
VMware ESX Server SNMP with third-party system management
agents:

Only using VMware ESX Server SNMP

Take the MAIN file you created and
rename it on ESX Server as
/etc/snmp/snmpd.conf.

Description:
During the ESX Server upgrade, the ESX Server installer
renames the /etc/vmware/vmware-device.map.local file
to /etc/vmware/vmware-device.map.local.orig. After
the upgrade, compare the
vmware-device.map.local.orig file with the newly
created vmware-device.map.local file and make any
necessary changes, as the locations of some drivers have
changed in ESX Server 2.0.1. With the addition of new drivers
in ESX Server 2.0.1, customization of
vmware-device.map.local may not be necessary.

Installing ESX Server on an IBM
eServer BladeCenter

Description:
During the ESX Server installation, you see a Welcome to
VMware ESX Server dialog with two buttons, Install and
Troubleshoot. Wait at least 10 seconds before making a
choice (until all of the necessary USB drivers are loaded),
otherwise you may get an error message stating "failed to
read /modules/module-info".

Once the ESX Server installation is complete, you must
manually eject the CD-ROM from its drive. It is not ejected
automatically.

Installing ESX Server on HP
Blade Servers

Description:
You can install ESX Server on HP Blade Servers in one
of two ways:

If your HP Blade Server has the 1.4 or later
version of ilo, you may use a Remote
Network Installation, or you may use
a remote CD installation. For information about
performing a remote CD installation, see your
HP documentation.

Installing HP Insight Manager 6.4
Agents on the Service Console

Description:
ESX Server 2.0 and 2.0.1 supports HP Insight Manager 6.4 Agents. HP
provides a script for installing them on the service console.

Action:

To install the software, download the HP RPMS files listed below from the
following location.

Copy these five files to a directory of your choice on the
service console of the computer where you want to install
the HP Insight Manager Agents. This example assumes you
have copied the files to a directory named
/download.

Log on to the service console as the root user and change
to the /download directory.cd /download

Run the installation script./usr/sbin/cmasetup.sh install

Reboot the computer when the script tells you to do so.

You may see a message, in your service console logs, that
states "casm: Detected 2 CPU's installed but only 1
running!". The reason for this message is the service console
runs on a single processor. You can safely disregard this
message.

Installing Dell OpenManage 3.5 or 3.6 on
the Service Console

Description:
Dell OpenManage can detect devices that are shared between
the service console and virtual machines, run diagnostic
tests on them and, in general, perform most operations it can
on any service console device.

Before installing the Dell OpenManage software on the ESX
Server service console, you must install some additional
files as described below.

Description:
Using the secondary USB port on some IBM servers is not supported.
IBM servers set up with multiple node configurations do not have functioning USB
ports on the secondary node.

Action:
Use the primary node for USB devices if using USB devices with multiple node configurations.

Virtual File Clustering Across Physical Machines

Description:
If you are planning to use ESX Server for clustering across different physical machines,
then you need this driver update.
This driver update is required for clustering support when using Microsoft Clustering Service (MSCS)
with virtual files across multiple physical servers.

Note: This patch is required only for clustering support on VMFS volumes.

Booting into Linux with
Hyper-Threading Enabled

Description:
If you have Hyper-Threading enabled, then you might see an
incorrect message indicating that you have double the number
of CPUs on your server. This only occurs when booting your
ESX Server into Linux.

Action:
You can safely disregard this incorrect information.

Entering Serial Numbers
Through the Service Console

Description:
You can also enter your ESX Server and VMware Virtual SMP
product serial numbers through the service console, as the
root user.

Log out, then log back into the VMware Management Interface,
to see your changes.

Known Issues with This Release

Security Updates in Version: ESX
2.0.1

Description:
Security auditing procedures based solely on version numbers
may indicate a few issues, even though those issues have been
addressed. The following packages are affected:

glibc 2.2.4-30 - Red Hat patch has been applied
but does not change the version number - fixes a buffer
overflow in the resolver; a buffer overflow in the XDR
decoder; a buffer overflow vulnerability in the way the
glibc resolver handles the resolution of network names and
addresses via DNS; a bug in the glibc-compat packages,
which provide compatibility for applications compiled
against glibc version 2.0.x; and a buffer that can
overflow exists in earlier versions of glibc glob(3)
implementation (the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures
project [http://cve.mitre.org] has assigned the name
CAN-2001-0886 to this issue)

wuftpd 2.6.1-20 - Red Hat patch has been applied
but does not change the version number - fixes a buffer
that can overflow

Action:
No action required.

Using Fibre Channel Adapters with
a SAN

Description:
Disks on a SAN seen through a Fibre Channel adapter, are
often displayed first in the installer and may cause
confusion when the ESX Server installer is installing the
service console on the boot disk.

Action:
Ensure that all Fibre Channel adapters (QLogic or Emulex)
are NOT attached to the SAN during ESX Server installations and upgrades.

Resolution:
To successfully run Uniprocessor and SMP-enabled SLES8 guest
operating systems, Hyper-Threading must be disabled on the
ESX Server machine and the boot parameters used by the kernel
must be modified on the guest operating system.

Disabling Hyper-Threading on the ESX Server
To disable Hyper-Threading, you need to modify the BIOS on
the machine where the ESX Server is installed. Please refer
to the documentation for your machine on how to disable
Hyper-Threading, or contact the manufacturer of the machine
for instructions.

Note: In the BIOS settings for some machines,
Hyper-Threading is sometimes named "Logical Processor."

Once Hyper-Threading is disabled on the ESX Server machine,
you need to modify boot parameters for the SLES 8 guest
operating system.

Modifying the Boot Parameters on the SLES 8 Guest
Operating Systems
Take the following steps after you install Uniprocessor and
SMP-enabled SLES 8 guest operating systems:

Boot into normal mode.

As root, use a text editor and open the following
file:/boot/grub/menu.lst

Add the following parameter to the end of the
failsafe line:noapic

Reboot the virtual machine.

You can safely boot into the Linux safe setting mode.

Failed Detection of
LUNs

Description:
If running Emulex HBAs on an IBM ESS Model 2105-E20 (IBM
Shark), the ESX Server may fail to detect LUNs on the SAN
array after a reboot. This means that you cannot discover or
configure LUNs on a SAN.

Action:
The LUN discovery in SAN of ESX Server through Emulex LP9802
is dependent on the BIOs setting of the HBAs. By default, the
Emulex PCI BIOS is disabled and needs to be enabled using a
diagnostics utility, such as the LightPulse utility (lputil).

Enabling the Emulex BIOS
To enable the Emulex BIOS, you can choose one of the
following options:

Unload and reload the Emulex driver manually after you
boot the ESX Server.

Upgrade and enable the Utility BIOS of the HBA and reboot
the ESX Server. You can download the latest LightPulse
utility and BIOs from http://www.emulex.com.

Reducing the Effect of SAN Resets
on Hosts

Description:
If you have configured a virtual machine to directly access
a raw LUN on a SAN, and the virtual machine is using the
virtual BusLogic SCSI adapter, you will see one or more
resets on the SAN whenever that virtual machine boots. This
behavior occurs because the BusLogic driver always issues a
SCSI bus reset when it is first loaded, and this SCSI bus
reset is translated to a full SAN reset.

Action:
You can reduce the effect of these SAN resets on other hosts
attached to the SAN by turning on the configuration variable
DiskUseDeviceReset.

To enable DiskUseDeviceReset variable:

Using a Web browser, log in to the VMware Management
Interface as root and click the Options tab. From
the Options page, click Advanced Settings.

Locate the DiskUseDeviceReset parameter and click
the variable value.

The Update VMkernel Parameter window opens and displays
the current value: 0.

In the New Value field, enter the value 1
and click Update. This saves the new setting.

Once the configuration variable is enabled, SCSI bus resets by
the guest translate to resets on the specific device (disk
array) containing the raw LUN, which greatly limits the effect
on other uses of the SAN.

Action:
Under ESX Server, these drivers can be used for disk drive
arrays; however, adding and deleting logical volumes on the
fly is not supported. The drivers cannot be used with tape
drives.

Binding Virtual Machines to a
NUMA Node

Description:
By default, ESX Server automatically assigns each virtual
machine to a "home" NUMA node. The virtual machine only runs
on CPUs in the home node, with access to "local memory", that
lies on the same home NUMA node. By making this assignment,
ESX Server attempts to provide the best performance, by
maximizing a virtual machine's access to its local memory.

However, you may choose to bind virtual machines manually to
a NUMA node. For additional information, see Memory
Resource Management.

Generic SCSI Devices

Description:
The only generic SCSI devices supported by ESX Server 2.0.1
are tape backup devices. If you plan to use tape backup
devices, you must select the LSI Logic SCSI device for your
virtual machine.

Description:
If you have an HP ProLiant DL760 G2 8-Way Xeon with
Hyper-Threading enabled, then it may not boot. You may see
the following error message:Warning: No sibling found for CPU 14
Enabling IO-APIC IRQs
IO_APIC#0 ID8 is already used!
Kernel Panic: Max APIC ID exceeded!

In idle task - not syncing

Action:
Boot into the BIOS of the HP ProLiant DL760 G2 and disable
Hyper-Threading.

Description:
After upgrading ESX Server, you may see an error message
similar to the following when you start, restart, or stop the
master SNMP agent through the VMware Management
Interface:
One or more errors occurred. SNMP Configuration: Could not
change VMware subagent status: Stopping vmware-snmpd:[FAILED]
Your main SNMP daemon may not be running; it should be
started before vmware-snmpd can run. To start your main
agent, run: /etc/rc.d/init.d/snmpd start".

Action:

If you have not done so already, log into the VMware
Management Interface as the root user.

Click the Options tab, then click SNMP
Configuration.

Disable the status of the VMware SNMP SubAgent.

Then, enable the status of the VMware SNMP SubAgent.

Networking Error, IP Address
Already Assigned to Another Adapter

Description:
Under certain conditions, you may see the following error
message from a Windows guest operating system:

The IP address XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX you have entered for this
network adapter is already assigned to another adapter Name of
adapter. Name of adapter is hidden from the network and Dial-up
Connections folder because it is not physically in the computer
or is a legacy adapter that is not working. If the same address
is assigned to both adapters and they become active, only one
of them will use this address. This may result in incorrect
system configuration. Do you want to enter a different IP
address for this adapter in the list of IP addresses in the
advanced dialog box?

In this message, XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX is an IP address that you
are trying to set and Name of adapter is the name of a network
adapter that is present in the registry but hidden in Device
Manager.

This can occur when you change a network connection's TCP/IP
configuration from DHCP to a static IP address if you have
either upgraded VMware virtual network adapters or have added
and removed network adapters multiple times.

The cause of the error is that a network adapter with the
same IP address is in the Windows registry but is hidden in
the Device Manager (My Computer > Properties > Hardware > Device Manager)
This hidden adapter is called a ghosted network adapter.

Using the Show hidden devices option in the Device Manager
(View > Show hidden devices) does not always show the old virtual NIC
(ghosted adapter) to which that IP Address is assigned

Description:
If you used ESX Server 1.5.2 to create a virtual machine
with a Windows Server 2003 guest operating system, then you
must update the guestOS configuration parameter in
the virtual machine's configuration file. Otherwise, this
virtual machine will not run properly with ESX Server 2.0.1.

Action:
Complete the following steps to update the guestOS
configuration parameter:

Log into the VMware Management Interface as the owner of
the virtual machine, or as the root user.

Click the arrow to the right of the terminal icon for the
Windows Server 2003 virtual machine and choose
Configure Options.

Click the Options tab, then under Verbose
Options, click the link.

Change the value of the guestOS configuration
parameter to one of the following:

winNetWeb (Windows Server 2003 Web Edition)

winNetStandard (Windows Server 2003 Standard
Edition)

winNetEnterprise (Windows Server 2003 Enterprise
Edition)

Click OK to save your changes.

Upgrading VMware Tools in a Linux
Guest Operating System

Description:
Before upgrading VMware Tools in a virtual machine running a
Linux guest operating system, you must stop networking. Note,
you do not need to complete these steps if you are installing
VMware Tools for the first time.

Description:
For resource management purposes, ESX Server may increase
the memory utilization within a guest operating system.
Therefore, it is important to ensure that the guest operating
system has sufficient swap space.

Action:
Add additional swap space in the guest operating system,
equal to the difference between the virtual machine's maximum
and minimum memory sizes.

Changing From the vlance to
vmxnet Virtual Network Adapter in a Linux Guest Operating
System

Description:
If you create a virtual machine with a Linux guest operating
system and the vlance driver, and then you later
decide to use the vmxnet driver instead, then you
must run the vmware-config-tools.pl script.
Otherwise, the virtual machine will not be able to use the
new driver.

Action:
Log into the guest operating system as the root user and run
the vmware-config-tools.pl script..

"Tainted" Drivers in a Red Hat Linux
8.0 Guest Operating System

Description:
When a Red Hat Linux 8.0 guest operating system loads the
vmxnet networking driver, it reports that the driver
is tainted.

Action:
This does not mean that there is anything wrong with the
driver. It simply indicates that this is a proprietary
driver, not licensed under the GNU General Public License.

Getting a DHCP Address in a Red Hat
Linux 9.0 Virtual Machine

Description:
You have a virtual machine, with Red Hat Linux 9.0 as the
guest operating system and the vlance driver for your network
connection. When this guest operating system tries to get a
DHCP address, the attempt fails and you see an error message
that states the link is down.

Action:
To work around this problem, become root (su -) and
use a text editor to edit the following files in the guest
operating system. If only one of these files exist, then make
the change for that file only./etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth[n]/etc/sysconfig/networking/devices/ifcfg-eth[n]

where, in both cases, [n] is the number of the Ethernet
adapter -- for example, eth0.

Add the following section to each of these two files:

check_link_down () {
return 1;
}

Then, run the command ifup eth[n] (where [n] is the
number of the Ethernet adapter) or restart the guest operating
system.

Description:
RedHat AS 2.1 MP kernels have a bug that prevents them from
always working correctly on uniprocessor systems (both native
and virtual). However, they work fine on multiprocessor
systems (both native and virtual). Therefore, we recommend
that you always boot a uniprocessor kernel on uniprocessor
systems and a multiprocessor kernel on multiprocessor
systems.

Because the multiprocessor kernel is the default, ensuring
that the correct kernel is selected on a uniprocessor system
requires some extra steps on each boot - namely selecting the
uniprocessor kernel from the boot loader menu.

Note:Be sure, if you are using a uniprocessor machine,
to deselect the kernel-vmp box (no asterisk between
the brackets).

If you have already installed the Red Hat Advanced Server
2.1, then you must change the default kernel to match the
processor system. Do not complete these steps if you
correctly installed Red Hat Advanced Server 2.1 following the
instructions in the preceding paragraph.

Boot the virtual machine.
The boot loader menu appears before the guest starts to
boot.

Manually, select the non-default (uniprocessor) kernel in
the bootloader.

Once the virtual machine is booted, as root, change the
single guest configuration file: /etc/lilo.conf,
if the guest is using LILO or /etc/grub.conf, if
the guest is using GRUB.

If you use LILO to boot your Linux system, follow
these steps:

Use your favorite text editor to open
/etc/lilo.conf.

Modify the image line to read:image= /boot/vmlinuz

Save the file and close your text editor.

Run /sbin/lilo.

If you use GRUB to boot your Linux system, follow
these steps:

Use your favorite text editor to open
/boot/grub/menu.lst.

Search for the section title linux.

Insert the parameter in the line starting with
kernel for each boot configuration with which
you use VMware products. For example:title linux
kernel (hd0,0)/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda3 vga=791
apic
initrd (hd0,0)/initrd

Save the file and close your text editor.
GRUB will read this entry during the next
boot process.

Reboot your guest operating system.

From this point on, RedHat AS 2.1 will boot the
uniprocessor kernel by default on the uniprocessor
system. This prevents the hang.

Description:
During your installation of Windows Server 2003 or Windows
XP Professional as a guest operating system in ESX Server,
you may see a message stating "Continuing your installation
of this software may impair or destabilize the correct
operation of your system either immediately or in the future.
Microsoft strongly recommends that you stop this installation
and contact the software vendor for software that has passed
Windows Logo Testing."

Action:
Click Yes to continue to install the software. This
error message is due to an unsigned BusLogic SCSI driver and
can be safely ignored.

Installing a Windows 2000
Server Guest Operating System

Description:
Only Windows 2000 Server guest operating systems, with
Service Pack 3 or 4 installed, are supported in ESX Server
2.0.1. If you attempt to run Windows 2000 Server, without one
of these service packs, in a SMP virtual machine, then your
guest operating system may fail to boot.

Action:
To work around this problem, be sure the virtual machine is
not running, then use a text editor to add the following line
to the virtual machine's configuration file:MAGICBOOT1 = 700

If a value of 700 (representing 700 microseconds)
does not enable you to start the guest operating system,
experiment with higher values. Increase the number to
800 for the second try, 900 for the third
try and so on until the guest starts.

If you are booting multiple virtual machines or running other
stressful workloads at the same time, you may need to assign
a higher magicboot1 value. For faster boot times, you may
experiment with values between 1 and 700 to
find the smallest value that allows the virtual machine to
boot.

Mouse Response is Slow in
Windows Server 2003

Description:
In the Windows Server 2003 guest operating system, the mouse
response is slow and jerky.

Action:
Complete the following steps. Your virtual machine should be
powered on and running.

Right-click the desktop and choose Properties.

Click the Settings tab.

Click the Advanced button.

Click the Troubleshooting tab.

Drag the bar for Hardware acceleration from None to Full.

Click OK to close the first dialog, and OK
again, to close the second dialog.

Description:
You should disable ports COM1 and COM2 if you are running
Citrix MetaFrame in a Windows 2000 Advanced Server guest
operating system. If you use these ports, you may see random
spikes in CPU utilization, affecting your performance.

Action:
Complete the following steps to disable the COM1 and COM2
ports in the guest operating system.

Description:
If you want to use the IBM Ultrium Tape Autoloader 3581 or
IBM TotalStorage Ultrium Tape Drive T400F in a Windows guest
operating system, then be sure to use the LSI Logic SCSI
adapter in the virtual machine.

Volume labels are not saved the first time a volume is created
using the VMware Management Interface.

Description:
When creating a new virtual disk using the VMware Management Interface,
the volume label is not saved.

Action:Adding and saving a volume label the second time
will save the setting. To do this, you will need to modify the disk
volume properties through the VMware Management Interface. Under the
Options tab, click Storage Management to view any VMFS volumes in your
ESX Server. Find the volume that does not have a label and click Edit.
The properties page for that volume appears and displays a Volume Label
field. Enter the volume label and click OK. This saves the volume label
and you return to the list of VMFS volumes in your system.

Description:
You want to edit the number of disk shares assigned to
either the service console or a virtual machine through the VMware Management Interface.
Click the Disk tab, then click Edit. If you are viewing the management interface
with Internet Explorer, then you see "undefined" for the number of shares.

Action:
Changing Disk Shares for the Service Console

These changes persist only until the next reboot of ESX Server.

Log into the service console as the root user.

Determine the world ID for the service console by typing the following:cat /proc/vmware/sched/cpu

Look at the output and find the number next to "console".
That number is the service console world ID.

Change the number of disk shares allocated to the service console:echo <disk_shares> >> /proc/vmware/vm/<service_console_world_ID>/disk/vmhba<disk_controller_LUN>

For example, if you wanted to increase disk shares to 5000, and the service
console world ID is 127, then type the following:echo 5000 >> /proc/vmware/vm/127/disk/vmhba0\:0\:0

Check to see your changes:cat /proc/vmware/vm/<service_console_world_ID>/disk/vmhba<disk_controller_LUN>

Look at the first column in the output. The number in this column reflects
the disk shares assigned to the service console.

Changing Disk Shares for a Virtual Machine

If the virtual machine is powered on, then you must make your changes by using the procfs.
These changes persist only until the next reboot of the virtual machine. If you want to make
these changes persistent, then complete the steps in the "Virtual Machine is Powered Off" section,
the next time the virtual machine is powered off.

Virtual Machine is Running

Determine the world ID of the virtual machine. The virtual machine world ID number is
listed next to VMID in the Status Monitor page in the management interface.

Log into the service console as the root user.

Change the number of disk shares allocated to the virtual machine:
echo <disk_shares> >> /proc/vmware/vm/<virtual_machine_world_ID>/disk/vmhba<disk_controller_LUN>"

For example, if you wanted to increase disk shares to 3000, and the virtual machine ID
is 135, then type the following:echo 3000 >> /proc/vmware/vm/135/disk/vmhba0\:0\:0

Check to see your changes. In the Status Monitor page of the management interface,
click the virtual machine name. Click the Disk tab, and view the number of shares
for the virtual disk.

Virtual Machine is Powered Off

These changes persist across reboots of the virtual machine.

Log into the VMware Management Interface as the root user, or a user that can
edit the virtual machine's configuration file.

Note: The value entered as the option name depends on your server's configuration.
For example, if you boot your virtual machine from virtual SCSI controller 0, disk 1, scsiX:Y would be entered as scsi0:1.

Description:
If you used fdisk from the command-line to manage
partitions, then you must restart the vmware-serverd process.
Otherwise, you will be unable to manage the disk partitions
using the VMware Management Interface for up to fifteen
minutes.

Action:
By default, the vmware-serverd process reports disk
partition configuration changes every fifteen minutes. To
view and manage disk partitions immediately, you must restart
the vmware-serverd process by logging in to the service
console as root and issuing the command killall -9
vmware-serverd.

Note: The vmware-serverd process will restart
automatically upon requests from any of its clients.

The ESX Server Hangs when the
vmkernel Loads on HP DL Series Servers

Description:
If you are using Hewlett_Packard DL-740 and Hewlett-Packard
DL-760 G2HP series servers, and the ESX Server software hangs
when vmkernel loads, the BIOS version of the server hardware
may not be compatible with the ESX Server 2.x software.

Action:
Please check the BIOS version and processor speed(s) of your
server hardware. If needed, upgrade or downgrade to the
compatible BIOS version.

This section explains how to provide additional CPU and
memory resources to the service console.

If, after changing these settings, you are still unable to
open the VMware Management Interface to your server, then the
number of outstanding processes, that are waiting to be
executed, is too high. You need to allocate the necessary CPU
resources to the management interface, by increasing the
priority for the vmware-serverd and httpd
processes.

Action:

Log in as the root user on the service console.

Type ps auxw and find the process IDs of the
httpd and vmware-serverd processes.
If there are multiple httpd processes, then type
top. Click Shift-p (P) to sort the output by CPU
usage. Remember the process ID for the httpd
process using the most CPU.

Raise the vmware-serverd process priority to -15
so that it can connect to all running virtual
machines:renice -15 -p <vmware-serverd_process_ID>

Verify that you can log into the VMware Management
Interface and view correct information about the virtual
machines. Once this occurs, then continue with the next
step.

Change the vmware-serverd process priority back
to the default of zero (0).renice 0 -p <vmware-serverd_process_ID>

Change the httpd process priority back to the
default of zero (0).renice 0 -p <httpd_process_ID>

Avoiding Management Interface
Failures when Many Virtual Machines Are Registered

Description:
If you have a very large number of virtual machines
registered on a single ESX Server machine, the VMware
Management Interface may shut down and a Panic out of
memory message may be recorded in
/usr/lib/vmware-mui/apache/logs/error_log.

Action:
By default, the Apache Web server uses 24MB of memory to
store information about the virtual machines on the server.
The errors described above can happen when this memory is not
adequate for the number of virtual machines.

To work around the problem, open the file
/etc/vmware/config in a text editor and find the
line that begins with mui.vmdb.shmSize =. Increase
the number in quotation marks, which is specified in bytes of
memory. Then restart the Apache server with the following
command:/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd.vmware restart

Registering and Unregistering
Virtual Machines

Description:
Only the root user can register and unregister virtual
machines through the VMware Management Interface. However,
regular users can register and unregister virtual machines by
using the Scripting API.

Powering on a Virtual Machine
Fails Because of an Invalid Ethernet Device

Description:
While powering on a virtual machine, you see the following
message in a pop-up window:

"Failed to initialize ethernet_n. This is most
likely because the appropriate ethernet driver is not loaded
in the vmkernel, or the ethernet device is being used in
exclusive mode by another virtual machine, or you have
exceeded the limit of 32 virtual machines per ethernet
device."

Action:
Click OK twice, for this pop-up window and the next
pop-up window. The virtual machine boots, but you will not
be able to use the Ethernet driver that was detected as
invalid.

You see this error message if:

the vmnic is already part of a bond

the vmnic or bond doesn't physically exist

the bond hasn't been configured

To fix this problem, edit the virtual machine's configuration
through the VMware Management Interface and select an
available vmnic or bond.

Logging into the VMware Management
Interface May Fail

Description:
After a long wait with the message "Connection lost:
Connection terminated by server", the log in may fail.

Action:
If you encounter this error, you must restart the HTTP
daemon. Log in to the service console (either at the ESX
server machine or over a Telnet or SSH link) and issue this
command:/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd.vmware restart

Remote Console May be Disconnected
or Show Errors

Description:
When the ESX Server machine is under heavy load the remote
console may be disconnected or show errors. This behavior
helps protect the virtual machines and the ESX Server
software from failure.

Action:
If you encounter this problem, wait until the load on the
server decreases, then reconnect the remote console to the
virtual machine.

Don't Place VMware Core Dump and
Swap Files on a SAN Disk

Description:
Do not place your VMware core dump file or swap file on a
SAN disk.

Description:
Do not rescan any non-Fibre Channel adapters with the
vmkfstools --scan command. This command is intended
only for Fibre Channel adapters. Rescanning, on some
non-Fibre Channel adapters may cause this command to hang.

Using Fibre Channel Cards

Description:
Always use Fibre Channel cards in dedicated mode. We do not
recommend sharing Fibre Channel cards between the service
console and the virtual machines.

Viewing the Contents of the /vmfs
Directory

Tip:
If you use the ls command to view the contents of
your /vmfs directory, and the response is slow, then
use the /bin/ls command instead.

Using Interrupt Clustering

Description:
Interrupt clustering is disabled in ESX 2.0.1.

Using e1000 Network Interface Cards
with the Service Console

Description:
You are using the e1000 network interface card (NIC) with
the service console and have no network connection, or the
output of lspci shows "Unknown device".

Description:
If you have configured the DiskMaxLUN configuration setting
to be greater than 8 (the default), and ESX Server hangs when
the VMkernel is booting, then you need to change the
DiskMaskLUNs setting.

Action:
You need to mask out all LUNs except LUN0 for the target
that has the processor device.

Log into the VMware Management Interface as root.

Click the Options tab, then click Advanced Settings.

Find the DiskMaskLUNs setting and mask the appropriate
LUNs.
For example, set DiskMaskLUNs to vmhba0:8:1-255;
as its value.

By setting the DiskMaskLUNs configuration setting, it
overrides the DiskMaxLUN setting for all HBAs that have a LUN
mask.

Using the vdf Command to Display Free
Space for All Mounted File Systems

Description:vdf is an ESX Server-customized version of the
df command. Use vdf in place of the
df command. vdf works with all the standard
df options.

Importing Files Larger than
2GB

Description:
The file manager in the management interface may display
incorrect information or no information at all for files
larger than 2GB. This means that you cannot use the file
manager to import certain virtual disk files created under
VMware Workstation 4.